Battlezone 2 having very low framerates or lagging

[Vid]

First of all I'm not sure if this is the correct forum or place for this, but I am trying to find some help about playing Battlezone II or Battlezone.

Many years ago, I had a system with a Athlon 1.5ghz 1800+, Geforce3 Ti200, 1gb PC2700, and Battlezone installed on it.  The game ran just fine and I enjoyed it greatly as the only FPS + Strategy that I found at the time. 
Recently a friend gave me some software from his old computer and it included Battlezone 2.  So, this sparked a reinterest in Battlezone for me.  I installed both on my current XP machine.  Athlon 64 3700+ 2.2ghz, 2x 1gb PC3200 ram, Geforce 7600GT 256mb AGP 8x.

The games load for me and they run, but I'm getting worse performance in Battlezone 1 than I remember on the older system, and I'm getting the same on Battlezone II.  Being that I've played BZ 1, I'm not as worried about it.  I would like to be able to play Battlezone II, at least on single player.

Now on to the problem :

In Battlezone II, most notably in the 4th mission I believe(but I could be wrong), the one that comes after your commander piloting a constructor and rebuilding a power supply, I get impressive framerate drops.

In most situations around the base, the framerate is around 25-55 fps, usually staying at 55fps.  However when I go to turn and head towards the direction of the two "hardware" that the superior commander in a carrier wants me to protect and not let the scions steal, my FPS drops to 5fps.  It's so bad that it affects my firing rate, aim, and has gotten me killed in this mission several times when engaging the 2 tug-type enemies and 2 scouts/tanks/whatever that escort them.

I've installed the 1.2 patch, and also the 1.3 PB4 I believe just to check and see if they would help.  It has not been any help at all.  I've tried turning all the graphics down to low/off, and see little/no improvement.
It is hard to believe that this newer system than my old system that ran Battlezone just fine, is struggling to run BZ 1 or BZ 2.  I seriously doubt its a lack of hardware, but more something in the newer software that I'm missing.

I just wondered if someone had any ideas, or should I be looking for an even more powerful system to run these 10 year old games?

Any help would be appreciated, I'm kind of lost as to what to try, possibly emulating win98 with virtual PC or something, but that is slow in its own right.

*edit*
It definately seems to be related to ships coming in range/firefights,  goign around the base seems to be no lag, but when those 2 tugs/2 support fighters show up and I go intercept them....    instant 55-60 down to 5-12.  Going over there to the exact same spot after I've killed them produces only about a 10fps drop down to 45~.

[bigbadbogie]

That is really weird.

What other games can you play on this computer without the framerate drop?

[Vid]

I don't game that heavily, but:

Warcraft III: The frozen throne, shows slowness at times in a 7+ player game when full armies are moving.  I figured this was expected.
Diablo II LoD, shows no real slowness ever that I've noticed
Starcraft Brood War is an old game but shows no slowness.

The machine got a 11,000 score in 3dmark03 if memory recalls.

[Ego - Nikolas]

First of all I'm not sure if this is the correct forum or place for this, but I am trying to find some help about playing Battlezone II or Battlezone.

Many years ago, I had a system with a Athlon 1.5ghz 1800+, Geforce3 Ti200, 1gb PC2700, and Battlezone installed on it.  The game ran just fine and I enjoyed it greatly as the only FPS + Strategy that I found at the time. 
Recently a friend gave me some software from his old computer and it included Battlezone 2.  So, this sparked a reinterest in Battlezone for me.  I installed both on my current XP machine.  Athlon 64 3700+ 2.2ghz, 2x 1gb PC3200 ram, Geforce 7600GT 256mb AGP 8x.

The games load for me and they run, but I'm getting worse performance in Battlezone 1 than I remember on the older system, and I'm getting the same on Battlezone II.  Being that I've played BZ 1, I'm not as worried about it.  I would like to be able to play Battlezone II, at least on single player.

Now on to the problem :

In Battlezone II, most notably in the 4th mission I believe(but I could be wrong), the one that comes after your commander piloting a constructor and rebuilding a power supply, I get impressive framerate drops.

In most situations around the base, the framerate is around 25-55 fps, usually staying at 55fps.  However when I go to turn and head towards the direction of the two "hardware" that the superior commander in a carrier wants me to protect and not let the scions steal, my FPS drops to 5fps.  It's so bad that it affects my firing rate, aim, and has gotten me killed in this mission several times when engaging the 2 tug-type enemies and 2 scouts/tanks/whatever that escort them.

I've installed the 1.2 patch, and also the 1.3 PB4 I believe just to check and see if they would help.  It has not been any help at all.  I've tried turning all the graphics down to low/off, and see little/no improvement.
It is hard to believe that this newer system than my old system that ran Battlezone just fine, is struggling to run BZ 1 or BZ 2.  I seriously doubt its a lack of hardware, but more something in the newer software that I'm missing.

I just wondered if someone had any ideas, or should I be looking for an even more powerful system to run these 10 year old games?

Any help would be appreciated, I'm kind of lost as to what to try, possibly emulating win98 with virtual PC or something, but that is slow in its own right.

*edit*
It definately seems to be related to ships coming in range/firefights,  goign around the base seems to be no lag, but when those 2 tugs/2 support fighters show up and I go intercept them....    instant 55-60 down to 5-12.  Going over there to the exact same spot after I've killed them produces only about a 10fps drop down to 45~.

Sorry to hear that but you need to check this http://www.bzuniverse.com/forum/index.php/topic,8618.0.html
If you want to play 1.2 you will have abaut 500 fps.(Im having abaut 2000 fps) Better game play, more maps, more mods, and more ppl to play with
Get 1.2 pacth here http://www.bz2maps.com/files.html

[bigbadbogie]

I've installed the 1.2 patch, and also the 1.3 PB4 I believe just to check and see if they would help.  It has not been any help at all.

If you had read his post you would have seen this. Neither work properly.

more mods

Uh... no.

Try rolling back your graphics drivers Vid.

[Axeminister]

Are you running Windows Vista and Direct X 10?

[TheJamsh]

Remember that BZ2 is optimized for use with Intel processors.

A 1.5Ghz AMD Athlon is exactly the kind of thing it wasnt written for. Even i struggle to get above 70FPS with a dual core 2.1 ghz proccessor and an Nvidia graphics card.

GSH is working on ways to keep framerates up all the time, my suggestion is to just wait and see what happens next, in the meantime, keep the screen resolution in the mid levels and the sky and terrain detail on medium/high.

just play with youre graphics settings.

[Nielk1]

If all video fails after a while except window borders, restart bz2 and play with sky on none from now on.

ALL VERSION ARE AFFECTED and 1.2 is likely worse off as 1.3 has had various fixes. The next 1.3 should help more, but that is not out yet, and I cannot say for sure since I do not know your computer.

Sadly its a waiting game. What happens if you run BZ2 in a window?

[Vid]

I went on to play the missions after, well what I could.

There is a mission, possibly #5 or #6, where you land and your commander sets up the base while you protect her, you have access to a recycler, scouts, and then you are asked to go put scavengers at bio metal 1 and 2.
Bio metal 2 has about 5 turrets at it and they will nicely destroy you if you go near it, later you are told to go destroy a relic thing with a satchel charge.
In this mission, I'm usually at 25-40fps, and frequently dip down to 5-10fps during battles, and sometimes just looking around the base.

Athlon 3700 2.2ghz
Windows XP
Directx 9.0c

I'll try running it in a window, but will have to figure out how to do that. 
Alt Enter works, wonder if it will stay windowed.

I'm running pretty much on all low settings.  I"m not sure if P3 optimized should be clicked, as i've did it both ways and that don't seem to help.

Sometimes in a mission(5 or 6), after a while, the whole game will lock up and i'll be forced to ctrl alt delete.  The sound will still be playing,but the video is locked.

*edit*
windowed mode doesn't help

[Zero Angel]

P3 optimizing changes the coloring of the units somewhat (ie: red will be changed to pink, blue will be light blue) but I don't think it affects gameplay.

NK1, no problems with sky high here in 1.2. I even have an Geforce 8600 and everything runs as it should, so therefore we can assume that theres only a very very low probability that it's his card. Drivers maybe, but if its the drivers (or DirectX) than problems like this should show up in other games -- especially older ones.

[mrtwosheds]

I've installed the 1.2 patch, and also the 1.3 PB4 I believe just to check and see if they would help.

If you did this to one installation of bz2, it will not work properly, you should only use either 1.2 or 1.3 not both.

[Vid]

I reinstalled BZ2 each time I patched.

[Nielk1]

I asked the video question because that happens a lot. I updated my drivers because other games had been patched to the point they crashed with my old ones, and now 1.2 AND 1.3 cant have sky turned on. Other issues should be better in 1.3.

I have a game I can't play because the mouse ALWAYS lags by like 5 seconds. Luckily not BZ2...

[technoid]

Hi Vid,
Yeah, it looks suspiciously like a video drivers issue as the others are saying, if not just video (and your entire system) in general.

Have you gone into Graphic options and turned everything off or low (except for Brightness, heh)?  Usually, Lights and Terrain are pretty good framerate reducers in BZII.  I'd start there if you haven't already.   

If you have an older video card, try switching that in and see what happens.  Do you still have that Ti200?  I still have mine. 

[Red Devil]

1. Check your video aperture size in BIOs.
2. Check the size of your page file.  2 x RAM is good.